Although
action in the United States Senate this week has slowed passage of the amnesty
bill, it is not yet dead as President Bush remains committed to this approach.That is why the President recently suggested that those of us who oppose
amnesty for illegal immigrants are unpatriotic.Those of us who strongly oppose the new immigration reform bill before
the Senate "don't want to do what's right for
America
," the president said.I reject
that assessment as unfair and inaccurate.

Supporters
of the amnesty bill like to claim that border protection is their first
priority.But if enforcement of our
borders is the highest priority, certainly a much shorter bill could have been
written.Even better, why not
enforce existing laws?According to
our Constitution, Congress makes the laws that the executive branch is to
enforce.The rush to pass this new
law seems to obfuscate this simple fact.There
are plenty of laws already in place, so it seems sensible to largely solve this
problem without new laws.

To make matters worse, as I wrote in a recent column, some 120 of our best
trained border guards are going to be sent to
Iraq to help them with border enforcement!In
addition, National Guard troops participating in Operation Jump Start on the
Mexican border are scheduled to also be sent to
Iraq and
Afghanistan
.

This
legislation purports to crack down hard at our borders, but as we have learned
time and time again, you cannot address enforcement until you address
incentives.That is why you cannot
have border security with an amnesty program in place: the incentive of amnesty
undermines any crack-down on border protection and in fact just makes work for
our Border Patrol all the more difficult.Incentives
in place to those who would come to the
United States illegally will remain in place if this legislation is passed.Illegal immigrants will still receive federal assistance and free medical
care and their children will still gain automatic citizenship after this bill is
passed.We need to face the fact
that securing our borders means more than legislation, or fences, or even more
Border Patrol.It means removing
incentives for people to come to the
US illegally in the first place.That
is why I will once again introduce an amendment to the Constitution to end
birthright citizenship this coming week.

Although
the "reform" of immigration in the amnesty bill is enough to cause alarm,
other highly troubling provisions are tucked away that will serve to undermine
our sovereignty and weaken our civil liberties.According to the most recent version of the Senate bill, the misnamed
Security and Prosperity Partnership for
North America is to be "accelerated."It
seems ironic that a project aiming to actually weaken US borders with
Mexico and
Canada would be added into a bill that purports to toughen border controls.

Also,
this bill will bring us closer to a national ID card, which without a doubt runs
counter to American values and history and will punish American citizens without
doing much to counter those who would come here illegally.

I
strongly disagree with the president that opposing this legislation is
unpatriotic.I believe we have an
obligation to reject any legislation that promises amnesty to those here
illegally, and that undermines the sovereignty and privacy of American citizens.

Almost 50% of USA lands are locked up in national forests or wildernesses. Americans are not allowed to drive motor vehicles on wilderness land without special permit. If an American tried to homestead one of these lands, he would be in more trouble than any illegal alien coming over the border.